A2 Exam - Section B Notes to revise.

OCR A2 Media Studies – G325

SECTION B COLLECTIVE IDENTITY

OCR state: “Candidates may analyse the representation of and/or the collective identity of one or more group (s) of people. Candidates might explore combinations of any media representation across two media, or two different representations across two media”. 

This resource focuses on the representation of youth and its impact on collective media identity and is not an exemplar exam response - students hopefully will be able to use the resource as stimulus, both in terms of analysis, debate and applying theory.

In the 2-hour exam (1 hour of which you will be writing your Collective Media Identity response) you will choose one essay from two:

Examples of Past Media and Collective Identity Questions

·         Analyse the impact of media representation on the collective identity of one or more groups of people.

·         Compare the different ways in which one or more groups of people have been represented by the media.

·         Analyse the ways in which at least one group of people is ‘mediated’.

·         Discuss the social implications of media in relation to collective identity. You may refer to one group of people or more in your answer.

·         “The media does not construct collective identity, they merely reflect it”. Discuss.

·         Analyse the ways in which the media represent one group of people you have studied.

·         “Media representations are complex, not simple and straightforward”. How far do you agree with this statement in reference to the collective media group you have studied?

·         How far does the representation of a social group change over time? Refer to at least two media in your answer.

·         To what extent is human identity increasingly ‘mediated’?

Collective identity implies a homogenous group, each with common interests and a similar lifestyle. Representation is the way in which the media mediate, repackage or ‘re-present’ individuals, people, places and social groups to audiences. Anything can be a representation. Theorists like Richard Dyer argue there are political and social reasons for maintaining a hegemonic collective identity in perpetuating social divisions, maintaining the dominant culture and legitimising inequality. Hegemonic assumptions about collective identity are often reinforced and circulated by the media as ‘common sense’ and this can lead to marginalisation and can also embed ideological beliefs e.g. the myth of older age and its association with wisdom. This in turn can be underpinned by moral panics – wayward youth culture was seen to blame for the 2011 London riots and applying Stanley Cohen’s appropriation from Wilkins – 1964 of the concept deviancy amplification, youth was demonised in tabloid, mid market tabloid and television news coverage.

Changes in technology and the liberalisation of social values has led to more pluralistic representations however. Web 2.0 has changed the face of media and technology empowering youth more, not just in relation to the manifest rise of youth entrepreneurs. It suggests a more confident identity and a more valued contribution to society than archaiccultural stereotypes. David Gauntlett argues that the idea of identity is “complicated” and that “everyone’s got one” with the added suggestion that the idea of a collective identity is slowly being eroded – this would link with the idea of the young ‘prosumer’ as both consumer and producer of media, exploring digital parameters and sharing media via social networking. David Buckingham approaches the concept of identity in a slightly different way suggesting that it is the way we relate to, or ‘fit in’ with those around us. This in turn could relate to notions of the disintegration of youth sub cultures, prevalent historically but now perhaps recognising the power of the individual and with identity as a “unique marker of a person”.

Cultural stereotypes and moral panics still remain however but arguably are as less obvious than before. Passive computer game culture, obesity, young female drinkers and smokers, unemployment and general social deviance are all still recurring though and are often used to blame for problems within society. Quadrophenia is a 1979 film that can be used as a historical frame of reference to explore the changing representation of youth culture – using a 1964 event on Brighton seafront as a visually iconic, recognisable narrative the film builds to a climax by recreating the well known fight between two traditionally opposed youth sub cultures - the Mods and the Rockers. Stanley Cohen described the event as a moral panic that was used to show how youth had become ‘out of control’ but in the film it could be argued elements of these sub cultures are represented as glamorous and aspirational. Produced by The Who, the film had a primary objective to entertain target audiences and as such, although themes and issues are explored, particularly through the character of Jimmy it is a musical journey as much as a spiritual one. A young Ray Winstone plays a biker while Sting (Ace Face) is represented as the ultimate Mod with his Vespa GS 160 scooter that Jimmy drools over; his good looks, smart dress, attitude and the ability to pay his fine in court immediately by cheque.

This representation is later ‘smashed’ with Jimmy seeing the Ace Face for what he is as a Bell Boy in a hotel, running around catering for the dominant classes which leads to his complete break away from any structure or support mechanisms whether family, girlfriend or youth sub culture. Older, middle class representations in Quadrophenia reflect Gramsci’s concept of cultural hegemony – middle class lives are seen normal, natural and commonsense while the behavior of Jimmy and his friends is seen as ‘different’ and unacceptable with social class as much as youth underpinning. This struggle for acceptability changes over time in as much as the negative representations of age and social class in 1979 is seen differently in more contemporary television teen dramas such as Skins (E4, 2007 – 2013) and Misfits (E4 2009 – 2013) and British films such as Fish Tank (2009) and The Selfish Giant (2013). The idea of spectatorship and the encodingand decoding of, according to Stuart Hall dominant preferred meanings is also important with interpretations varying.

Jimmy, for example could be seen as a more contemporary representation of youth (in the end) looking to break away from his social, and in the end cultural straightjacket with which he becomes so embittered and disappointed. In the

21st century his mental illness and problems potentially would be identified but in Quadrophenia he resembles notions of difference and the outsider as he reflects and obsesses over his own mod identity which leads ultimately, applying Taijfel and Turner to his marginalisation from the collective group (the Mods) to which being part of was so important. Jimmy is semi suicidal, pill pops and in a final scene, the dominant reading of which is that he takes his own life by riding the Ace Face’s scooter off a cliff provides audience with a negotiated or oppositional reading – Jimmy instead is symbolically trashing the culture of the Mod and with it, his collective identity. He is seen at the beginning of the film walking away from the cliff further anchoring his individualism with the realisation that youth culture and the politics of youth is built on fragile foundations.

In Subculture: The Meaning of Style, Dick Hebdige posits the idea that youth sub culture maintains divisions in society identifying two stereotypes – youth as fun and youth as trouble. In The Selfish Giant, an independent social realist film distributed in 2013 the latter ‘trouble’ stereotype is explored – it portrays the dysfunctional lives of two young boys, Arbor and Swifty who steal copper cable for Kitten, the unscrupulous boss of a scrap yard in Bradford, west Yorkshire. The film compares well with Fish Tank as two films from the same genre focusing on the representation of youth and regional identity but also for British film, seemingly unable again to detach itself from issues of social class. The Selfish Giant explores the innocence of childhood, myths surrounding this construct and the idea of consequences. Both boys attend school but Arbor is permanently excluded and both have as priorities making money, long before they would be stereotypically seen as legitimately on the job market. Arbor actually gives some of the money he makes to his family in a reversal of parental expectations.

The film stops short of developing a macro narrative on the problems faced across the UK in impoverished areas where young boys will risk their lives stealing cable from railway tracks and other hazardous areas like behind power stations. At the same time youth is represented as arrogant, selfish, aggressive, deviant and criminal but Arbor and Swifty are also framed as kind, emotive and vulnerable with the key criminal in the film the adult owner of the scrap yard who exploits them. Skins, on occasion offers similar narratives to encode a challenging representation of initially deviant youth but as victims of adult crime. In series four, episode one audiences immediately are introduced to youth culture through drugs and club culture but soon into the episode we see a morally correct young DJ challenging his unethical club owner boss who on a regular basis has no problem with having his club flaunting health and safety guidelines in terms of numbers allowed in.

The Selfish Giant has parallels with the 2007-2014 long running Barnardos ‘Believe in Children’ campaign, also social realism which asks the public to challenge the aggressive, cultural stereotypes they are being presented with in the poster campaign and think again about the vulnerability of youth. Martin Hoyles in The Politics of Childhood examines how and why children have gradually been separated from the adult world of work, in turn leading to a form of marginalisation where their role in society is stereotypically to be ‘looked after’ having no economic value (the Barnardos children are represented as marginalised as everyone has turned their back on them).

Under no circumstances is Hoyles suggesting a return to child labour but points out that media representations of childhood commonly conform to stereotypical assumptions while a large proportion of young people earn a small amount of money to sustain themselves and to facilitate independence. In The Selfish Giant and in Barnardos advertising Acland’s‘ideology of protection’ can be studied with Arbor and Swifty promoting the collective notion that young people are in need of constant surveillance and monitoring, allowing society and the state to have more control over them. The two boys in the film strongly challenge this collective ideology on one level but in terms of narrative outcomes it arguably is reinforced with Arbor hiding under his bed and refusing to come out until the Swifty’s Mum (Swifty has just been fatally electrocuted while with Arbor stealing cable) appears in a scene that suggests emotional understanding and forgiveness.

In Fish Tank, representations of youth are similar. The more middle class Connor exploits Mia sexually and she is seen in a victim role, despite her manifest aggressive behavior in a similar way that Arbor and Swifty are exploited by Kitten. Her family, like Arbor and Connor’s is also dysfunctional and the film takes a ‘Broken Britain’ approach to representations of family and social class. Mia is an interesting character in that her youthful vulnerability is evident and is given over to audiences as equally as her anti social behavior – this references Martin Barker’s ideas of how moral panics of deviant youth culture are often challenged through good and bad deeds. Mia’s positive feelings for her sister are apparent and her symbolic desire to free a horse she thinks will be killed by Billy and his brothers is admirable (the role of horses is also important in The Selfish Giant). Andrea Arnold positions audiences however into decoding intelligent, sympathetic readings of poverty, neglect, abuse and notions of the difficulties faced by single parent families on a low income and the idea of consequences. Through the mise-en-scene the film represents all of the youth chav stereotype signifiers but arguably suggests a more pluralistic representation.

Using Stuart Hall’s framework, this dominant or oppositional reading would be dependent on audience – I witnessed a white, middle class west London independent cinema audience laughing at the representations, aghast that people ‘could live like that’ while a BFI audience fully understood the social realist conventions and the director’s encoded meanings. The film had a limited theatrical release in only 40 cinemas and for some audiences it was reassuring in how it perpetuated cultural stereotypes, applying Dyer’s theory again of legitimising ideas of difference to maintain unequal power relations in society. Mia could be seen as ‘belonging’ to a collective group of dysfunctional, urban teenagers with no value in society, economically or socially. The representation of this collective group is frequently alluded to in the right wing press, e.g. during and after the London riots and similar images are circulated and reinforced, often deliberately placed inbinary opposition to more ‘normal’ mainstream culture. Levi Strauss’ framework is useful in understanding this with middle aged, more respectable representations seen as the dominant culture in teen dramas such as Waterloo Road and mainstream soap operas likeEastenders.

Like Jimmy in Quadrophenia however, Mia manages to break of out this spiral (hence the title ‘Fish Tank’) and is empowered to escape from her life when narrative resolution sees Mia driving away with her boyfriend to a new, albeit uncertain life in Wales. Tyler, her younger sister waves her farewell uttering the immortal line, “Say hello to the whales for me”. Tyler is also wayward in that she drinks, smokes, swears but has more of an emotional, dependent loyalty to her mother and ironically is seen in some scenes ‘telling Mia off’ for not attending meetings with the local education authority about getting her back into school. Youth culture in Fish Tank on one level is seen as empowering despite the fact that Mia’s childhood ‘innocence’ has been destroyed by her upbringing as she challenges societal norms, escapes from a recognised collective identity and builds her own future.

Fish Tank, Kidulthood (2006) and Adulthood (2008) reflect the recent trending of social realism towards youth audiences – central protagonists of social realist films have always been young, angry and alienated but potentially a more compassionate reading is becoming evident. An oppositional reading to this could reference the aspirational genre hybridisation of recent social realist films like Shifty, Ill Manors and Shank with the gangster genre. The deviant threat of criminal youth culture could potentially be amplified by the hybridisation with a negative collective urban group reinforced – passive consumption by youth audiences remains a possibility but there are moral messages encoded into the films. Many contemporary social realist films have moral closure e.g. Shaun turning his back on racism at the end of This is England or Ricky’s younger brother Curtis symbolically turning his back on gun crime in Bullet Boy. In Kidulthood, Trevor pays the ultimate price for exploring his individualism with collective identity a key theme of the film in relation to youth and gang culture.

The representation of age is also subject to biological and social constructions. Youth culture is mediated through media representations to an audience who read potential encoded meaning. The TV teen drama Waterloo Road is an interesting text that explores this concept as it main narrative function – the main characters in the drama are school children and teachers, often teachers ‘saving’ and looking after their charges with parents rarely seen throughout the nine series. A latent meaning from Waterloo Road, and on occasional manifest is how the programme takes a critical approach to parenting, often blaming parents within the narrative for the anti social behavior of the children. Originally set in Rochdale (Greater Manchester) it again, like many other British media representations of youth makes clear correlations with deviant, anti social behavior linking with working class culture. The programme moved from a dysfunctional school in Rochdale to an independent academy in Greenock, Scotland for the eighth series but for the ninth series currently airing (as of February 2014) the school has lost its benefactor and has returned to a comprehensive status.

Waterloo Road in its ninth series presents audiences with exaggerated narratives that deal with hyper real, although potentially realist scenarios including a teacher discovering a pupil is suffering from neglect, finding out her brother is dealing cocaine from their family home, a kidnapping by a supply teacher, alcoholism and social exclusion – Gabriella, a pupil from a privileged middle class family who has recently been excluded from school arrives in Greenock as a form of ‘tough love’ metered out to her by her parents. Other themes explored over the years have included homosexuality, racism, rape, cancer, divorce and suicide; all directly involving the children in the school. The programme borrows from soap opera conventions in terms of familiarity with character and setting also the dramatic nature of the representations encoding at times a form of hegemonic cultural stereotyping (common for mainstream texts aimed at mass audiences).

Waterloo Road concerns itself with negative and positive representations of youth culture with an emphasis on the negative. David Buckingham, in Youth, Identity and Digital Media explores the idea of deviance and delinquency as a social problem which legitimises various forms of treatments e.g. the work of social, educational and clinical agencies that seek to rehabilitate troublesome youth. ‘Problems’ are omnipresent in the drama, normalising the traumatic world of the teenager by way of hegemonic representations suggesting even that narrative events are a form of rites of passage. While good drama is not always born from ‘normal’, non-dramatic representations Waterloo Road perpetuates the idea of ‘youth as trouble’ and successfully marginalises working class youth culture into a collective identity.

On the other side of the social class spectrum, Outnumbered is a British situation comedy based in west London that focuses on the role of the children within a middle class, barely functional family. Sue and Pete are literally outnumbered by their children who do not conform and engage in stereotypically adult dialogue with their parents, suggesting a form of pluralistic representation. It is worth remembering however the fact that the programme follows mainstream genre sitcom conventions and is scheduled on BBC1. Audiences are positioned into understanding the innocence of childhood and into ‘feeling the love’ in that there is a clear feel good element to the show as the two central parent protagonists actually like each other which is a key appeal – cynically the show has surveillance aspects to it and it is actually promoting the ideology of a middle class, nuclear family lifestyle. Although the children on one level challenge cultural stereotypes they exist within the safety and parameters of a stable family environment. To explore representations of youth in British comedy further it is often worth turning to C4 and E4 for more alternative approaches that potentially offer a more obvious critique of hegemonic constructs revealing collective identity.

Misfits for example was a science fiction comedy drama broadcast on E4 between 2009 and 2013 about a group of young offenders sentenced to work in a community programme service where they obtain supernatural powers. On one level, the comedy presents audiences with the familiar idea of ASBO teens (audience identification) but represents them in a likeable way. By giving them superpowers it directly contradicts the negative stereotype, offering audiences a point of view from the protagonists themselves. As with parents in Waterloo Road adult roles are represented negatively with characters like probation officers being represented as monsters – this leads audiences onto a latent preferred meaning that what is in fact monstrous is the negative representations of youth in society and the whole idea of stereotyping. Again linked in with working class culture, the programme is a genuine site of struggle exploring societal hegemonic constructs through humour. As with any text however, the audience is crucial and as with all E4 programing, the positive representation of youth culture may be explained by the niche 15-35 target audience.

Film and television, despite social networking and viral interactivity are still one-way narratives that either challenge, reinforce (or sometimes both) the idea of youth and collective identity. Perhaps looking at digital technology and developing further the role of the prosumer is a way of analysing the changing representation of youth culture in society with young people constantly exploiting new commercial opportunities. Memes are quite an interesting construct as a shared representation and Facebook also makes a perfect case study to discuss notions of the construction of one’s own identity. Michael Wesch suggests the idea of peer to peer sharing has led the to fragmentation and implosion of traditional youth identity. Henry Jenkins reinforces this by challenging the dominant, mainstream belief that internet communication reduces social skills by stating instead, that users are actively participating in multiple communication. Without end loading this resource with theoretical input this in turn would support David Buckingham’s argument of the fragmentation of traditional collective identity. Digital technology, of all media is fundamentally changing the concept of collective identity while traditional media still mediates cultural stereotypes but dependent on audience and context. Audiences still expect these representations but are increasingly challenged by moves towards self-construction and pluralism within a changing hegemonic framework.

Mini Glossary of Terms

·         Homogenous Group: A group that all have the same characteristics

·         Mediation: The selection and construction of material in how it is given over to audiences via editing and point of view

·         Hegemony: Traditional stereotypes that are reinforced and circulated as common sense to audiences

·         Marginisalisation: How stereotyping can lead to someone or a social group being ‘placed’ on the outside of accepted cultural norms

·         Ideology: An overarching set of ideas often uses as a form of social control

·         Moral Panics: Issues in society that often lead to the blaming, and marginalisation of a scapegoat

·         Deviancy Amplification: Associated with moral panics, this explains how the media exaggerate a negative representation to ensure a dominant shared reading

·         Liberalisation: A more diverse, tolerant, equally acceptable approach

·         Pluralism: Again, more liberal suggesting and range of different, challenging representations

·         Web 2.0: Interactive internet media e.g. blogs and social networking

·         Manifest: Obvious, on the surface meaning

·         Cultural Stereotyping: The stereotyping of social groups in society by the media

·         Prosumer: A producer and consumer of media

·         Passive Audiences: Audiences that accept and do not challenge representations

·         Iconic: Well-known and respected

·         Aspiration: Looking up to something or somebody

·         Encoding/Decoding: Putting meaning in, taking meaning out

·         Dominant, Negotiated and Oppositional Readings: The intended meaning of a text, where meaning is uncertain or where audience have decoded a completely different reading

·         Anchorage: How meaning is made more definite

·         Binary Oppositions: Where representations are deliberately different to construct further meaning

·         Latent Meaning: Less obvious meaning

·         Memes: Internet ‘stars’

OCR A2 Media Studies

G325 Section B: Contemporary Media Issues

Media and Collective Identity Exemplar A Grade Response

Analyse the impact of media representation on the collective identity of one or more groups of people.

Collective identity implies a homogenous group, each with common interests and a similar lifestyle. Representation is the way in which the media mediate, repackage or ‘re-present’ individuals, people, places and social groups to audiences. Anything can be a representation. Theorists like Richard Dyer argue there are political and social reasons for maintaining a hegemonic collective identity in perpetuating social divisions, maintaining the dominant culture and legitimising inequality. Hegemonic assumptions about collective identity are often reinforced and circulated by the media as ‘common sense’ and this can lead to marginalisation and can also embed ideological beliefs e.g. the myth of older age and its association with wisdom. This is turn can underpinned by moral panics – wayward youth culture was seen to blame for the 2011 London riots and applying Stanley Cohen’s appropriation from Wilkins – 1964 of the concept deviancy amplification, youth was demonised in tabloid, mid-market tabloid and television news coverage.

Changes in technology and the liberalisation of social values has led to more pluralistic representations however. Web 2.0 has changed the face of media and technology empowering youth more, not just in relation to the manifest rise of youth entrepreneurs. It suggests a more confident identity and a more valued contribution to society than archaic cultural stereotypes. David Gauntlett argues that the idea of identity is “complicated” and that “everyone’s got one” with the added suggestion that the idea of a collective identity is slowly being eroded – this would link with the idea of the young ‘prosumer’ as both consumer and producer of media, exploring digital parameters and sharing media via social networking. David Buckingham approaches the concept of identity in a slightly different way suggesting that it is the way we relate to, or ‘fit in’ with those around us. This in turn could relate to notions of the disintegration of youth sub cultures, prevalent historically but now perhaps recognising the power of the individual and with identity as a “unique marker of a person”. 

Cultural stereotypes and moral panics still remain however but arguably are as less obvious than before. Passive computer game culture, obesity, young female drinkers and smokers, unemployment and general social deviance are all still recurring though and are often used to blame for problems within society. Quadrophenia is a 1979 film that can be used as a historical frame of reference to explore the changing representation of youth culture – using a 1964 event on Brighton seafront as a visually iconic, recognisable narrative the film builds to a climax by recreating the well-known fight between two traditionally opposed youth sub cultures - the Mods and the Rockers. Stanley Cohen described the event as a moral panic that was used to show how youth had become ‘out of control’ but in the film it could be argued elements of these sub cultures are represented as glamourous and aspirational. The struggle of youth for acceptability changes over time in as much as the negative representations of age and social class in 1979 is seen differently in more contemporary television teen dramas such as Skins (E4, 2007 – 2013) and Misfits (E4 2009 – 2013) and British films such as Fish Tank (2009) and The Selfish Giant (2013). The idea of spectatorship and the encoding and decoding of, according to Stuart Hall dominant preferred meanings is also important with interpretations varying.

In Sub Culture: The Meaning of Style, Dick Hebdige posits the idea that youth sub culture maintains divisions in society identifying two stereotypes – youth as fun and youth as trouble. In The Selfish Giant, an independent social realist film distributed in 2013 the latter ‘trouble’ stereotype is explored – it portrays the dysfunctional lives of two young boys, Arbor and Swifty who steal copper cable for Kitten, the unscrupulous boss of a scrap yard in Bradford, west Yorkshire. The film compares well with Fish Tank as two films from the same genre focusing on the representation of youth and regional identity but also for British film, applying Gramsci’s theory of cultural hegemony is seemingly unable again to detach itself from issues of social class. The Selfish Giant explores the innocence of childhood, myths surrounding this construct and the idea of consequences. Both boys attend school but Arbor is permanently excluded and both have as priorities making money, long before they would be stereotypically seen as legitimately on the job market. Arbor actually gives some of the money he makes to his family in a reversal of parental expectations.

The film stops short of developing a macro narrative on the problems faced across the UK in impoverished areas where young boys will risk their lives stealing cable from railway tracks and other hazardous areas like behind power stations. At the same time youth is represented as arrogant, selfish, aggressive, deviant and criminal but Arbor and Swifty are also framed as kind, emotive and vulnerable with the key criminal in the film the adult owner of the scrap yard who exploits them. Skins, on occasion offers similar narratives to encode a challenging representation of initially deviant youth but as victims of adult crime. In series four, episode one audiences immediately are introduced to youth culture through drugs and club culture but soon into the episode we see a morally correct young DJ challenging his unethical club owner boss who on a regular basis has no problem with having his club flaunting health and safety guidelines in terms of numbers allowed in.

Martin Hoyles in The Politics of Childhood examines how and why children have gradually been separated from the adult world of work, in turn leading to a form of marginalisation where their role in society is stereotypically to be ‘looked after’ having no economic value (Arbor and Swifty are represented as marginalized but have economic value). Under no circumstances is Hoyles suggesting a return to child labour but points out that media representations of childhood commonly conform to stereotypical assumptions while a large proportion of young people earn a small amount of money to sustain themselves and to facilitate independence. In The Selfish Giant Acland’s ‘ideology of protection’ can be studied with Arbor and Swifty promoting the collective notion that young people are in need of constant surveillance and monitoring, allowing society and the state to have more control over them. The two boys in the film strongly challenge this collective ideology on one level but in terms of narrative outcomes it arguably is reinforced with Arbor hiding under his bed and refusing to come out until the Swifty’s Mum (Swifty has just been fatally electrocuted while with Arbor stealing cable) appears in a scene that suggests emotional understanding and forgiveness.

In Fish Tank, representations of youth are similar. The more middle class Connor exploits Mia sexually and she is seen in a victim role, despite her manifest aggressive behavior in a similar way that Arbor and Swifty are exploited by Kitten. Her family, like Arbor and Connor’s is also dysfunctional and the film takes a ‘Broken Britain’ approach to representations of family and social class. Mia is an interesting character in that her youthful vulnerability is evident and is given over to audiences as equally as her anti-social behavior – this references Martin Barker’s ideas of how moral panics of deviant youth culture are often challenged through good and bad deeds. Mia’s positive feelings for her sister are apparent and her symbolic desire to free a horse she thinks will be killed by Billy and his brothers is admirable (the role of horses is also important in The Selfish Giant). Andrea Arnold positions audiences however into decoding intelligent, sympathetic readings of poverty, neglect, abuse and notions of the difficulties faced by single parent families on a low income and the idea of consequences. Through the mise-en-scene the film represents all of the youth chav stereotype signifiers but arguably suggests a more pluralistic representation.

Mia could be seen as ‘belonging’ to a collective group of dysfunctional, urban teenagers with no value in society, economically or socially. The representation of this collective group is frequently alluded to in the right wing press, e.g. during and after the London riots and similar images are circulated and reinforced, often deliberately placed in binary opposition to more ‘normal’ mainstream culture. Levi Strauss’ framework is useful in understanding this with middle aged, more respectable representations seen as the dominant culture in teen dramas such as Waterloo Road and mainstream soap operas like Eastenders.

Like Jimmy in Quadrophenia however, Mia manages to break of out this spiral (hence the title ‘Fish Tank’) and is empowered to escape from her life when narrative resolution sees Mia driving away with her boyfriend to a new, albeit uncertain life in Wales. Tyler, her younger sister waves her farewell uttering the immortal line, “Say hello to the whales for me”. Tyler is also wayward in that she drinks, smokes, swears but has more of an emotional, dependent loyalty to her mother and ironically is seen in some scenes ‘telling Mia off’ for not attending meetings with the local Education Authority about getting her back into school. Youth culture in Fish Tank on one level is seen as empowering despite the fact that Mia’s childhood ‘innocence’ has been destroyed by her upbringing as she challenges societal norms, escapes from a recognised collective identity and builds her own future.

The representation of age is also subject to biological and social constructions. Youth culture is mediated through media representations to an audience who read potential encoded meaning. The television teen drama Waterloo Road is an interesting text that explores this concept as it main narrative function – the main characters in the drama are school children and teachers, often teachers ‘saving’ and looking after their charges with parents rarely seen throughout the nine series. A latent meaning from Waterloo Road, and on occasional manifest is how the programme takes a critical approach to parenting, often blaming parents within the narrative for the anti-social behavior of the children. Originally set in Rochdale (Greater Manchester) it again, like many other British media representations of youth makes clear correlations with deviant, anti-social behavior linking with working class culture. The programme moved from a dysfunctional school in Rochdale to an independent academy in Greenock, Scotland for the eighth series but for the ninth series currently airing (as of February 2014) the school has lost its benefactor and has returned to a comprehensive status.

Waterloo Road concerns itself with negative and positive representations of youth culture with an emphasis on the negative. David Buckingham, in Youth, Identity and Digital Media explores the idea of deviance and delinquency as a social problem which legitimises various forms of treatments e.g. the work of social, educational and clinical agencies that seek to rehabilitate troublesome youth. ‘Problems’ are omnipresent in the drama, normalising the traumatic world of the teenager by way of hegemonic representations suggesting even that narrative events are a form of rites of passage. While good drama is not always born from ‘normal’, non-dramatic representations Waterloo Road perpetuates the idea of ‘youth as trouble’ and successfully marginalises working class youth culture into a collective identity.

Misfits is a more pluralistic representation of youth which both challenges and reinforced notions of collective identity. It is a science fiction comedy drama broadcast on E4 between 2009 and 2013 about a group of young offenders sentenced to work in a community programme service where they obtain supernatural powers. On one level, the comedy presents audiences with the familiar idea of ASBO teens (audience identification) but represents them in a likeable way. By giving them superpowers it directly contradicts the negative stereotype, offering audiences a point of view from the protagonists themselves. As with parents in Waterloo Road adult roles are represented negatively with characters like probation officers being represented as monsters – this leads audiences onto a latent preferred meaning that what is in fact monstrous is the negative representations of youth in society and the whole idea of stereotyping. Again linked in with working class culture, the programme is a genuine site of struggle exploring societal hegemonic constructs through humour. As with any text however, the audience is crucial and as with all E4 programing, the positive representation of youth culture may be explained by the niche 15-35 target audience.

Film and television, despite social networking and viral interactivity are still one-way narratives that either challenge, reinforce (or sometimes both) stereotypical representations of youth, reflecting a collective identity. Perhaps looking at digital technology and developing further the role of the prosumer further is a way of analysing the changing representation of youth culture in society with young people constantly exploiting new commercial opportunities with the media offering a form of liberal pluralism, but within a hegemonic framework.

Overall awarding and explanation

42/50 = A Grade

·         Well contextualised with an awareness of past, present and a future with potentially the opportunity to develop notions of collective identity and the representation of youth in the future a little further.

·         Strong theoretical framework correctly applied to text, underpinning own analysis – use of quotation would have ensured a deeper academic structure.

·         Intelligent analytical framework that explores case study texts (and referencing others for balance) with focused reference to the topic.

·         Evidence of one area of representation, applied to two media with perhaps too much of a focus on film and not enough on the second media, television.

·         Well written, balanced with evidence of argument and debate.

Broken Down, Exemplar C-B Grade Response

Analyse the impact of media representation on the collective identity of one or more groups of people.

You have one hour only to answer this question so the essay needs to be well planned and structured – I suggest that you detail sub headings for the essay and then bullet point the main areas underneath those headings that are to be covered. It is also good practice when preparing for the exam to write in full prose an example introduction and conclusion.

Stare at the question until you are happy with the area of study it wants you to explore and then respond in the first paragraph by showing the examiner you know what collective media identity is as a concept – follow this by linking in some early theory and introduce your topic, youth collective identity:

·         Collective identity implies a homogenous group (each with common interests and a similar lifestyle). Representations in the media can reflect this.

·         Representation is the way in which the media mediate, repackage or ‘re-present’ individuals, people, places and social groups to audiences.

·         Theorists like Richard Dyer argue there are political and social reasons for maintaining a hegemonic collective identity (traditional representations that are reinforced as common sense) in perpetuating social divisions, maintaining the dominant culture and legitimising inequality.

·         This is turn can underpinned by moral panics – wayward youth culture was seen to blame for the 2011 London riots and applying Stanley Cohen’s appropriation from Wilkins – 1964 of the concept deviancy amplification, youth was demonised in tabloid, mid market tabloid and television news coverage.

Now you need to begin to link collective identity more directly to youth culture (your topic) remembering there must be reference to a ‘past, present and future’ referencing two media. This is the time to also impress the examiner with the fact that you can illustrate your points with a range of examples and the beginnings of ability to apply theory to your case studies:

·         Cultural stereotypes and moral panics still remain however but arguably are as less obvious than before e.g. passive computer game culture, obesity, young female drinkers and smokers, unemployment and general social deviance.

·         Quadrophenia: Stanley Cohen described the event the film is based on as a moral panic that was used to show how youth had become ‘out of control’ but in the film it could be argued elements of these sub cultures are represented as glamourous andaspirational (you can explore this historical text in a little more depth but focus primarily on the present).

·         The struggle of youth for acceptability changes over time in as much as the negative representations of age and social class in 1979 is seen differently in more contemporary urban film dramas like Kidulthood, Shifty and Ill Manors and my case studies – The Selfish Giant (2013) and Fish Tank (2009).

·         Using Stuart Hall’s theory of dominant, oppositional of negotiated readings however, the impact of a representation on a collective identity depends on the audience(answering the question directly).

Start to develop your first case study: The Selfish Giant (film). If you can, it will help you to get more marks if you frame the introduction to your first case study with some theory. Have 5 key points ready you want to say about the film in how it challenges or reinforces a collective identity (this can be about similarity and difference, past and present):

·         In Sub Culture: The Meaning of Style, Dick Hebdige suggests the idea that youth sub culture maintains divisions in society identifying two stereotypes – youth as fun and youth as trouble (well done – relevant theory in straight away).

·         In The Selfish Giant, an independent social realist film distributed in 2013 the latter ‘trouble’ stereotype is explored – it portrays the dysfunctional lives of two young boys, Arbor and Swifty who steal copper cable for Kitten, the unscrupulous boss of a scrap yard in Bradford, west Yorkshire.

·         The film compares well with Fish Tank as two films from the same genre focusing on the representation of youth and regional identity but also on social class.

·         The Selfish Giant explores the innocence of childhood, myths surrounding this construct and the idea of consequences. Both boys attend school but Arbor is permanently excluded and both have as priorities making money, long before they would be stereotypically seen as legitimately on the job market. Arbor actually gives some of the money he makes to his family in a reversal of parental expectations.

·         The film stops short of developing a macro narrative on the problems faced across the UK in impoverished areas where young boys will risk their lives stealing cable from railway tracks and other hazardous areas like behind power stations. At the same time youth is represented as arrogant, selfish, aggressive, deviant and criminal but Arbor and Swifty are also framed as kind, emotive and vulnerable with the key criminal in the film the adult owner of the scrap yard who exploits them. Skins on occasion, offers similar narratives (you will be developing your television case studies later).

·         In The Selfish Giant Acland’s ‘ideology of protection’ can be studied with Arbor and Swifty promoting the collective notion that young people are in need of constant surveillance and monitoring, allowing society and the state to have more control over them. The two boys in the film strongly challenge this collective identity.

You mentioned Fish Tank earlier, now would be a good place in the essay to compare the representations to give balance and create a discussion, or argument to support your points:

·         In Fish Tank, representations of youth are similar. Mia’s family, like Arbor and Connor’s is also dysfunctional and the film takes a ‘Broken Britain’ approach to representations of family and social class (see Daily Mail moral panics).

·         Mia is an interesting character in that her youthful vulnerability is evident and is given over to audiences as equally as her anti social behavior – this references Martin Barker’s ideas of how moral panics of deviant youth culture are often challenged through good and bad deeds.

·         Andrea Arnold positions audiences however into decoding intelligent, sympathetic readings of poverty, neglect, abuse and notions of the difficulties faced by single parent families on a low income and the idea of consequences.

·         Through the mise-en-scene the film represents all of the youth chav stereotype signifiers but arguably suggests a more pluralistic representation.

·         Mia could be seen as ‘belonging’ to a collective group of dysfunctional, urban teenagers with no value in society, economically or socially. The representation of this collective group is frequently alluded to in the right wing press (e.g. the Daily Mail), e.g. during and after the London riots and similar images are circulated and reinforced, often deliberately placed in binary opposition to more ‘normal’ mainstream culture.

It’s now time to explore the impact of representation on youth collective identity in your second media – television. Remember, as before to reference a range of examples in your introduction:

·         Teen dramas such as Skins (E4, 2007 – 2013) and Misfits (E4 2009 – 2013) offer a hegemonic, but also pluralistic (diverse, different) representation.

·         Levi Strauss’ framework is useful in understanding this with middle aged, more respectable representations seen as the dominant culture in teen dramas such asWaterloo Road and mainstream soap operas like Eastenders.

Explore in as much depth as possible your first television case study – Waterloo Road:

·         The main characters in Waterloo Road are school children and teachers, often teachers ‘saving’ and looking after their charges with parents rarely seen throughout the nine series. A latent (deeper/hidden) meaning from Waterloo Road, and on occasional manifest (obvious) is how the programme takes a critical approach to parenting.

·         Waterloo Road concerns itself with negative and positive representations of youth culture with an emphasis on the negative. David Buckingham, in Youth, Identity and Digital Media explores the idea of deviance and delinquency as a social problem that legitimises various forms of treatments e.g. the work of social, educational and clinical agencies that seek to rehabilitate troublesome youth – this can be seen in Waterloo Road.

·         ‘Problems’ are the main feature the drama, normalising the traumatic world of the teenager by way of hegemonic representations. While good drama is not always born from ‘normal’, non dramatic representations Waterloo Road perpetuates the idea of ‘youth as trouble’ and successfully marginalises working class youth culture into a collective identity.

Compare your case study of Waterloo Road to a second text – with film you argued thatThe Selfish Giant and Fish Tank were similar in terms iof representation but here you could create an argument to suggest that Misfits suggests a more pluralistic (diverse) representation which impacts more ‘positively’ on youth collective identity:

·         Misfits is a more pluralistic representation of youth which both challenges and reinforced notions of collective identity. It is a science fiction comedy drama broadcast on E4 between 2009 and 2013 about a group of young offenders sentenced to work in a community programme service where they obtain supernatural powers.

·         On one level, the comedy presents audiences with the familiar idea of ASBO teens (audience identification) but represents them in a likeable way. By giving them superpowers it directly contradicts the negative stereotype, offering audiences a point of view from the protagonists themselves.

·         As with parents in Waterloo Road adult roles are represented negatively with characters like probation officers represented as monsters – this leads audiences onto a preferred (dominant) meaning that what is in fact monstrous is the negative representations of youth in society and the whole idea of stereotyping.

·         Again linked in with working class culture, the programme explores hegemonic constructs through humour. As with any text however, the audience is crucial and as with all E4 programing, the positive representation of youth culture may be explained by the niche 15-35 target audience.

Summarise your arguments and conclude your essay by direct linking with the essay title – in an exam based situation where you may be running out of time, it is better to finish your analysis and only if time permits, develop a conclusion. The conclusion however, is an opportunity to anticipate representation of youth in the future to evidence OCR’s requirement of a ‘past, present a future’. It is also a place where you can reference the role of technology (OCR like this) and also frame again the essay with a last theoretical reference:

·         Film and television, despite social networking and viral interactivity are still one-way narratives that either challenge, reinforce (or sometimes both) stereotypical representations of youth, reflecting a collective identity.

·         The texts I have examined reflect changes in the film genre of social realism in regards to the way youth is represented but still following a genre template in terms of audience expectations and codes and conventions. Television arguably (dependent on channel) has more flexibility in terms of challenging notions of the collective group although ironically many 16-19 year olds do not watch television in traditional platform format any more – choosing instead to stream using broadband technology

·         Perhaps looking at digital technology and developing further the role of the prosumer and identified by David Gauntlett is a way of analysing the changing representation of youth culture in society with young people constantly exploiting new commercial opportunities with the media offering a form of liberal pluralism, but within a hegemonic framework (things are changing slowly). Young people will become increasingly more empowered, economically, socially and culturally as a result of digital technology.